1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for harvesting row crops and more particularly to such an apparatus operable at moderate cost manually to harvest row crops and wherein a plurality of picking stations are independently movable toward and from the row crops for purposes of accessability and having particular utility in the harvesting of grapes for drying to form raisins.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
The harvesting of agricultural crops is a very highly labor intensive operation, and therefore expensive whether such harvesting is performed manually or by mechanical harvesting equipment. As the expensive of manual harvesting increased over the years, due in part to minimum wage laws, more extensive development work was carried out with mechanical harvesters. However, the mechanical harvesters presently available are characterized by very high purchase and maintenance costs. Such costs are not within a price range which would be practical for many farming operations and particularly those of smaller scale. However, even for large scale farming operations the expense of purchasing and maintaining such equipment constitutes an inordinantly great portion of overall operating costs. Furthermore, mechanical harvesters have in many instances suffered from other drawbacks including frequent breakdown, damage to trees, vines, or other plants, damage to related equipment, damage to the crops themselves and less thorough harvesting than would be desirable.
For example, conventional grape harvesting operations typically entail the use of large numbers of field workers who move along the rows of grapevines within the vineyards picking grapes by hand. Alternatively, a variety of types of mechanical harvesters may be employed. In the case of table grapes, the crop is frequently packed in lug boxes in the vineyard, sometimes using packing trailers. In the case of wine grapes, the harvested crop is commonly dumped into bins or gondolas for delivery to the winery. In the production of raisins, the grapes are most commonly placed on trays for sun drying in the vineyard. In some cases, the grapes, while still on the vines, are sprayed with a solution such as methyl oleate which substantially removes the waxy outer coating that protects the fruit from the sun. The grapes are permitted to sun dry on the vines and are then harvested. The foregoing constitute the most common processes currently in use, but there are variations of these as well as other processes, such as drying of grapes to form raisins in drying houses, which are less frequently employed.
The direct labor and equipment costs in these conventional practices have become overwhelming. But there are other problems incident to the use of such processes. For example, in the case of manual harvesting, the repeated bending, stooping and walking related to picking are, in themselves, conducive to fatigue and wasted time and effort. Not only is this unpleasant for the laborers, but fatigue is a substantial factor in limiting their output. It has been shown in the harvesting of particular agricultural produce that as much as forty-eight percent of a field worker's time may be consumed in walking to and from the area where he is picking, emptying the produce that he has harvested and repositioning for continued picking.
In the case of conventional mechanical harvesters, there are considerable delays in the harvesting operations due to mechanical breakdown; the chronic tendency for such devices to damage irrigation systems, trellis structures and other equipment; and the inevitable production of trash in the form of leaves, twigs, dust, dirt and rock which becomes inextricably mixed with the harvested crop.
Therefore, it has long been known that it would be desirable to have an improved apparatus for harvesting row crops that could be purchased and operated at moderate cost to enhance the ease and dependability with which row crops can be harvested while reducing to an absolute minimum the problems associated with such harvesting and thereby affording the capability of harvesting row crops at minimum overall cost, producing a superior harvested crop and without the multitude of impediments which have long plagued agriculture.